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Book 



THE BEQUEST OF 

DANIEL MURRAY 

WASHINGTON. D. C. 

1925 



^ESTIONS 
EACHERS 



:iPAL T. S INBORDEN 




ph Keasbey Brick School 
Enfield, N. C. 



iS & SROUGHTON PRINTING COMPANY 
RALEIGH, N, C, 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 



Idio^joicrasy is defined as a peculiar- 
ity of ^lysical or of mental constitution 
\ or temperament common to certain in- 
dividuals. When these peculiarities be- 
come very distinct the individual is 
said to be eccentric. I presume all 
persons have peculiarities, more or less, 
that are common only to themselves; it 
-. is this in the individual that distin- 
|i guishes him from other individuals. It 
.^is the sum of these peculiarities that 
;- gives character to one's life. ^^This is 
my way of doing things" is often of- 
;fered as an apology for one's eccen- 
-^.tricities. 

'! I know of no vocation in which these 
eccentricities are more pronounced than 
in the teaching profession. Whatever 
weaknesses to which human nature is 
heir show themselves in unmistakable 
forms in this profession. It is the ex- 



4 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

tent to which other peoples' eccentri- 
cities affect our work that makes or 
mars an institution. If the individ- 
ual's home training, education and en- 
vironment have not given him the cor- 
rect view of life he would do well to 
ttvke the suggestions and opinions of 
others who are the best informed. The 
difficulty in dealing with those who 
have these eccentricities is that they do 
not know the opinions of the best in- 
formed, and any attempt to advise them 
is like prying open the shell of a mol- 
lusk. They may see the point, but the 
absorption of it is a tedious process. 

Some weeks ago a gentleman, whose 
business takes him among very many 
schools, remarked in my hearing that 
the one thing that interested him very 
much was the difference in the schools. 
There is not only this great difference 
between the schools, but there is a 
marked difference in the individual 
teachers of the same school. This is 
natural. One cannot pick up a list of 

teachers of any school of any size but 
The bequest of 

Daniel f^/lurray, 

Washington, D. C 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 5 

that he will find as many schools repre- 
sented in the list of teachers as there 
are teachers in the school. Each one 
represents the ideas of the school from 
which he graduated. He emphasizes 
the thing that was emphasized with 
him. It may be the course of study, 
some form of discipline or the general 
regulations affecting the life of the stu- 
dents. The extent to which these vary- 
ing opinions can be brought into one 
composite whole measures the success of 
that school. The spirit with which this 
is done measures its individuality and 
character. 

We often tell our students as they 
go forth for the summer that one of 
the first things for them to learn, if 
they do not know it, is how to work 
harmoniously with their fellows. They 
may get all there is in books, hear fine 
lectures, and give fine lectures, but 
before they can succeed very long, 
they must learn how to work with 
their fellows. If I had any advice 
to give to the graduates who are 



6 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

going from our schools this year it 
would be: ''Learn how to work with 
your fellows." If they have not learned 
this they have failed to get one of the 
most important adjuncts to success. 
This accounts, in a very large measure, 
for the restlessness in the teaching force 
of this country. Those who have the 
oversight of our institutions are very 
thoughtful of our feelings. When 
changes are made it is that we can do 
better work in another field, or it is a 
promotion. Often this is true, but the 
real fact of the change, nine times out 
of ten, is that we cannot work harmo- 
niously with our fellows. We may be 
sent to another field, but when the nov- 
elty of the new field has been worked 
off, then another change has to be made. 
The trouble is with ourselves. The 
knowledge we have of ourselves and our 
special fitness is too often very super- 
ficial. We may know all the latest in- 
ventions and discoveries and know noth- 
ing about our hearts and the motives 
that prompt us to action. We do not 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 7 

stop to think about them, but attribute 
all our troubles to others. I do not 
mean to say that we are not to have 
opinions of our own, nor that we should 
not hold fast to what we know to be ab- 
solutely right. The educational en- 
vironment of our friends may give them 
the same right to their opinions as we 
have to ours. At such an exigency let 
us not think that the world will end if 
we do not have our own way in the mat- 
ter. Life is too short to have friend- 
ships broken and usefulness impaired 
by differences of opinion over non- 
essentials. 

The difficulties encountered between 
teacher and teacher or teacher and 
school officials are often very small as 
compared with those arising between 
teachers and students. We must not 
forget that our success as teachers de- 
pends upon our ability to attract to us 
those who want to learn. Unless we 
can do this w^e will have no one to teach. 
Students often have real grievances as 
well as other people. They may many 



8 Suargestions for the Teacher. 

times be imaginary^ but they are real to 
them and they must be heard. What- 
ever may be said to the contrary, it 
must be admitted that very often the 
opinion of students respecting an indi- 
vidual teacher is the best thermometer 
of that teacher's temperament. Of 
course trashy gossip must not be encour- 
aged for a moment. It leads to con- 
fusion and makes trouble. Teachers 
cannot afford to engage in it; students 
cannot afford to engage in it. Xothing 
detracts from the high standard of dis- 
cipline more than trashy gossip. It 
leads to credulousness, jealousy and de- 
struction. More community divisions 
and feuds have r .arted from senseless 
gossip than from all other sources. What 
are the attractive qualities in a teacher ? 

EFFECTIVE QUALITIES OF A GOOD 
TEACHER. 

The teacher must know the tools with 
which she is to work thoroughly well. 
I refer to books. She should know, if 
she is a gTammar grade teacher, arith- 
metic, English grammar, geography, 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 9 

English history, elementary science, 
elementary music even if she has no 
voice to sing; she should be able to 
write legibly, correctly and with a reas- 
onable degree of rapidity. This much 
is absolutely necessary. If this is the 
extent of her knowledge of books she 
will be a very inefficient teacher. It is 
not enough that she shall know only 
the authors that she studied while in 
school herself. She must know many 
authors and be thoroughly conversant as 
to their methods. 

Being a ''Graduate" is no guarantee 
of one's ability to teach. The success- 
ful teacher must surround herself with 
many books on the subjects being 
taught, and she must be a diligent stu- 
dent of those books. She must read 
educational journals and general news. 
It is not enough to know ancient his- 
tory and know nothing of history that 
is now being made, and nothing of the 
educational reform and industrial wave 
now sweeping over the world. This in- 
cludes a knowled2:e of the men who are 



10 Suggestious for the Teacher. 

bringing things to pass. These are live 
issnes that must be worked into our 
public and private system of education. 
They cannot all be put into text-books 
nor can recitation periods be set aside 
for all of them. The teacher must 
herself be the text-book, revised daily, 
weekly and monthly, in order to be 
most efficient in her work. She must 
be a daily digger for new material, 
new knowledge and new ways of pre- 
senting that knowledge to others. She 
must put new life into old subjects and 
new inspiration into dull students as 
well as into bright ones. Aside from 
the knowledge one gets from books and 
papers, there is nothing so inspiring to 
the teacher as personal contact with 
those who are leaders in educational 
thought and work. This contact may 
be had in teachers' institutes, confer- 
ences, summer schools, etc. The teacher 
can be no more efficient in her work 
without this contact and inspiration 
than a carpenter can be efficient in his 
without sharp tools. He will be a cob- 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 11 

bier in wood and she will be a cobbler 
in brains. Of the two I would rather 
have the cobbler in wood, as he will do 
less harm. Every efficient teacher 
knows what it means to work after a 
brain cobbler. They are too numerous. 
The best teachers, like the best orators, 
like the best in every other profession, 
are born to it; when they discover their 
talent they use every opportunity and 
every environment to perfect that 
talent. 

If teachers find themselves in the 
profession without the teaching talent 
it is possible to develop a talent and 
special gift. Demosthenes had an im- 
pediment in speech, but by hard work 
he became one of the greatest orators in 
antiquity. Disraeli made an inglorious 
failure in one of his first speeches, but 
he overcame his disability and was one 
of England's greatest speakers. We are 
told that the late Dr. Charles D. Mc- 
Iver was an utter failure at the be- 
ginniug of his public career as a speech- 
maker. ISTo man has figured in the 



12 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

educational movement of ISTortli Caro- 
lina and in the entire South as that 
man did. He was sought in all edu- 
cational counsels and movements look- 
ing to the educational advancement of 
the people. If Helen Keller finds her- 
self bereft of sight, hearing and speech 
at the age of a few years and discovers 
her talents with only three senses and 
becomes a renowned scholar, it seems 
possible that we should develop any 
talent with five senses. If we have no 
talent nor the will to find it and develop 
it, we had better continue to cobble 
wood and carry water. The latter we 
can do without any special fitness. This 
calls for no special intelligence and ab- 
solutelv no sham work. The profes- 
sion of teaching requires the highest 
possible intelligence. This intelligence 
cannot be maintained without contin- 
uous stndv. 

Some years ag:o a ISTorthem gentle- 
man visited our school, and we went 
out to see some work that was being 
done. The supervisor, in the act of 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 13 

giving some orders to the students, 
asked my friend to excuse him, to 
which my friend said, ''Go, ahead, cer- 
tainly, I want to hear how you give or- 
ders/' This is the key to our success. 
We may go through all the ordeals to 
which teachers are subject, but if we do 
not know how to give orders we shall 
fail as teachers. Tact, not simply pro- 
fessional tact, but that which comes 
from the heart that rings right. One 
teacher will say, '^Johnny, go bring a 
bucket of water." Johnny goes off 
skipping, jumping, laughing, whistling, 
and happy. Before you know it the 
water is there. Another teacher says 
identically the same thing to the same 
boy in the same words. Johnny goes 
off muttering to himself, pouting, mad, 
and stays so long that another boy has 
to go for him and sometimes the third 
boy goes for the two boys. What is 
the trouble ? Simply the way the 
teacher said it; the accent that typifies 
the inner life, thoughts and character 
of the teacher; that is all, and that is 



14 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

everything. Johnny does not like that 
teacher. She has not done anything to 
Johnny, but she will never lead him 
nor his kind until she changes her tac- 
tics. If this teacher be a man he will 
be most repellent. 

Teachers must do their work in a 
way to get and retain the confidence of 
their students. They must feel that 
they can report to their teachers their 
troubles as well as their joys. They 
will not report either to the repellent 
teacher. Our instruction will not be 
effective unless we get this confidence. 
They must feel that we are their best 
friends. This confidence cannot be ob- 
tained in a perfunctory way. The les- 
sons from text-books, and those on per- 
sonal morals, will be imperfectly taught 
unless they have been first assimilated 
in the life and thought of the teacher, 
so that every word of approval or dis- 
approval will be genuine and full of 
sympathy. If we get into their confi- 
dence we must take them, to some ex- 
tent, into ours. 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 15 

Teachers too often tell their students 
uf their faults rather than their merits. 
]\Iost of them have some good points in 
their character and many times this is 
the only avenue of approach to their in- 
ner life and reclamation. It will not 
hurt the student to tell him sometimes 
vrhen he did the manly thing. There 
is always ground upon which both stu- 
(^ent and teacher can most legitimately 
meet for interchange of thought, opin- 
ion and mutual helpfulness. They can 
do this without the teacher's losing her 
dignity and without the student's for- 
getting that he is a student. This will 
mean as much for the teacher as for the 
student. After all we are dealing with 
people who are just like ourselves, only 
they have not had our experience. 

THE POINT OF CONTACT. 

If students should vex us with their 
ways it will not help the matter for us 
to get mad. It may be a good thing 
for us to note the one whose ways do 
not harmonize with our ideas of de- 



16 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

portment, let them happen in our pres- 
ence or in our room, and talk the mat- 
ter over. I spoke of teachers getting 
angry. Of course teachers never get 
angry; that is preposterous. We may 
as well get angry as to have students 
think we are angry. Students should 
be happy in their work. They learn 
more when they are happy and it is 
better. This is equally true of the 
teacher. One cannot be happy when 
one has been out on a night's carousal. 
The wine glass, the card party and 
the dance hall are incompatible with 
the best work in the class-room. The 
teaching profession, above all others, 
needs positive characters and strong 
personalities. There is nothing more 
conducive to these important qualities 
than a clear conscience and an abun- 
dance of strong nerves. One cannot 
have a clear conscience when indulging 
in secret sins nor can the nerves be 
strong when the system is poisoned with 
narcotics and alcohol. Healthy condi- 
tions of the body make healthy condi- 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 17 

tions of the mind. When teachers are 
sour, crabbed and cross, the photographs 
which we make daily in the lives of our 
students will be an exact reproduction 
of ourselves. 

Success in teaching, as in everything, 
depends upon our point of contact. 
This is equally true when we are deal- 
ing with animals. The lion knows at 
once from the eye of his keeper when 
that keeper has lost confidence in him- 
self and ceases to be the master of the 
situation. 'No one knows this better 
than the keeper either. It is a psy- 
chological fact that our thoughts are 
often felt by other people, and that 
many times their attitude toward us is 
shaped by these thoughts. If we per- 
fect our ideals in others or succeed in 
training those whose education is en- 
trusted to us, we must have their confi- 
dence and make them happy in the 
acquisition of these ideals. A dozen ig- 
norant IS^egroes will do more work in 
one day while singing a plantation bal- 
lad than the same number of Italians 



18 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

will do in two days with an idea tliat 
the government is all wrong, that all 
wealth was acquired by stealth, robbery 
and ojDpression of the poor. It is this 
fact that gives emphasis to the saying, 
that onr homes are the bulwarks of the 
nation. It is to increase the health and 
hence the happiness of the laboring 
population all over this country that 
the landlords are tearing down old shan- 
ties, cabins and barracks and rebuild- 
ing comfortable homes for the laboring 
classes. One of the very first things 
the Panama Commission did when it 
was decided to build the Panama Canal, 
was to make the isthmus healthy and 
to build homes for the people, so that 
the laborers would be happy in their 
work. 

We cannot always control arbitrarily. 
Preceding every national election a 
campaign is waged from one end of the 
country to the other, educating the 
masses in issues of national concern. 
A democratic government is said to be 
the best form of government because it 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 19 

is self-government. Every member of 
society is subject to the laws of his own 
making, the minority acquiescing with 
the will of the majority. The excep- 
tion is anarchy and revolution. It is 
often best for students to see and to 
know the reasons for certain require- 
ments. They may enter more heartily 
into the work when they see that the 
requirements are best for all concerned. 
Students do not make the fundamental 
rules in our schools, but it is well for 
them to know that they have resulted 
from the best opinions of those who are 
leaders in educational work. They are 
to be accepted by students, grafted into 
their lives and become a part of their 
character. The degree with which this 
can be done happily is the measure of 
our success as teachers. This is just 
as true outside of the teaching profes- 
sion. Roosevelt is hailed as one of our 
greatest presidents because he has suc- 
ceeded better than any other man in 
bringing order out of chaos in muni- 
cipal, national and international affairs. 



20 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

In all these reformations he has had the 
confidence of the people. He has made 
his constituency happy in working his 
reformations. He has not winked at 
conniving, gTafting and thieving in or- 
der to do this. It is not necessary that 
students be allowed to break down all 
order of decency and school discipline, 
nor that they be allowed to engage in 
the lowest forms of rowdyism, and dirty 
tricks among themselves, calculated to 
undermine healthy bodies and minds, in 
order that friendship may be main- 
tained between teacher and student. 
The teacher or school authority who al- 
lows these disorders has no more busi- 
ness in a school than the student who 
engages in the disorder. 

SOME TRADITIOITS. 

There are some traditions that have 
come to us in our missionary work that 
are as fundamental as any code that 
was ever written. It is interesting to 
know what these are and why they are. 
We have visited some excellent schools 
where there were placards in every hall. 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 21 

pasted or tacked, on every door, but I 
have failed to see that the order is bet- 
ter as a result of these placards. Our 
homes are not governed by placards but 
by a strong personality of father and 
mother. The school stands next to the 
home, and that is the best governed 
school in which the strongest person- 
ity of the teachers is manifested. All 
the American Missionary Association 
schools have one rule. It is very sim- 
ple : Do unto others as you would that 
others should do unto you. This is ap- 
plicable to every phase of school life. 
It is a good rule to follow after leaving 
school. If all men would conduct their 
affairs by this rule there would be no 
race clashes, no cheating, no stealing, 
no killing, no bribing, no fusses and no 
hatred for any reason. In our schools 
all rules are subsidiary to the Golden 
Eule. What are some of these rules? 
We insist that waste shall not be thrown 
promiscuously from the doors and win- 
dows into the yards, but that it must 
be put into receptacles and carted or 



22 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

carried away. The reason for this is 
evident, for waste thrown about the 
yards causes the soil to be contaminated 
with germs, which, in turn, will cause 
sickness. It is not a mark of culture 
nor of good taste to dispose of waste 
in that way. Fruit parings not only 
draw flies, but they are dangerous to 
those walking on them. In most of 
our well governed cities it is unlawful 
to throw these parings on the streets. 
We insist most emphatically that slops 
should not be thrown from the Avin- 
dows and that the most loathful habit 
imaginable is that of expectorating 
from the windows, ^o sensible person 
will question the reasonableness of this 
prohibition. We insist that it is en- 
tirely in keeping with good manners and 
good breeding to prefix the proper title 
Mr. or Miss in addressing gentlemen 
and ladies. Boys who are bred in the 
best families are taught that they should 
take off their hats on entering the 
threshold of the home. These are ameni- 
ties that are often overlooked in the 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 23 

rush of every-day life, but that does 
not make them less important. The ob- 
servance of them counts the well-bred 
every time. We must insist that the 
habit of observing them is continued. 
Students must make up their beds, 
clean up their rooms, perform all their 
household chores and at the right time. 
With our matrons no lesson is more 
exacting than this one. She is the 
mother, matron, house-keeper, teacher 
and physician, adviser and friend, all 
in one. The facility and thoroughness 
with which she governs marks the suc- 
cess of her work. The thoroughness 
and spirit with which the students do 
their Avork marks their industry. Every 
chair, picture, washstand, broom, and 
every piece of decoration should be in 
its place. This is a mark of good taste 
and refinement. A touch here, a touch 
there, a little drapery and a few living 
flowers will add to the esthetic in hu- 
man nature. The habit of taking care 
of these little things now will make the 
home happy after awhile. Teachers 



24 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

who have the oversight of this work 
and who are succeeding in it may well 
congratulate themselves that they are 
laying foundations that shall count for 
race integrity and for the unity of the 
home. 

STUDENTS ARE NOT SERVANTS^ TEACH- 
ERS ARE NOT BOSSES. 

Sometimes the tendency in our 
schools is to treat students as servants. 
A greater mistake cannot be made. 
They are not servants in the commonly 
accepted term. When we recognize 
them on those terms we lose our place 
among them as teachers. If we would 
preserve our usefulness as teachers we 
must appeal to them on a different basis. 
It may be a fact that many of them do 
manual labor, for which they receive 
ample remuneration, but that does not 
change the condition. This is an im- 
portant point. It is the one thing that 
is said to make the difference between 
the !N'orthern white man and the South- 
ern white man. The latter too often 
sees in the negro only the ex-slave and 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 25 

the possibility of a good servant. The 
former sees in his evolution that God 
has something tangible to add to the 
white man's civilization. So if our 
work as teachers is supervising manual 
labor, or manual training, or domestic 
science, or any of the trades, or if it 
be in the class room, we must come to 
it not as ^'boss," nor as '^overseer," nor 
simply as supervisor, but we must 
come as teacher in the spirit of Christ 
to this the most sacred of all callings to 
teach those who may, in the future, be 
our true liberators and masters. If we 
come in any other spirit we shall fail 
utterly as teachers. We shall be out of 
harmony with the environment. The 
ministry is only another name for this 
same profession. The profession of 
teaching cannot be used as a stepping 
stone to something higher; there is no 
higher profession under the canopy of 
heaven than that of teaching. 

FORMING CORRECT HABITS. 

My contact with teachers of ]^egro 
youth leads me to believe that there are 



26 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

only a few who really know and appre- 
ciate the sacredness of their calling. It 
would be surprising to know how the 
lives of teachers are affecting the lives 
of students under 'their supervision. 
The students in our schools are receiv- 
ing, like clay in the hands of the potter, 
impressions that they will never forget. 
Let us hope that they are all good im- 
pressions, but we know very many of 
them are ^^a-etchedly bad. Does any 
one doubt that the spirit of grafting, 
pilfering, conniving, double dealing, 
etc., had its incipiency in the class- 
rooms forty years ago? Does any one 
doubt that all the immoralities that are 
characterizing many of our institutions 
of public trust had their incipiency in 
the tardy discipline of the schools and 
families of that period ? I think these 
matters should be studied with an idea 
of correcting the tendencies in our 
schools to-day. In too many instances 
the family delegates its work to the 
school, the school acts on the assumption 
that the formation of good habits is 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 27 

the function of the home. So that 
what is most important is often neg- 
lected. This is why we place so much 
stress upon the formation of correct 
habits in the schools in which we are 
most concerned. It is easy to do things 
when we have formed the habit. It is 
more important that the student form 
the habit of correct study than it is to 
learn a few things and recite them like 
a parrot. Bad habits will always get 
people into unpleasant relations, good 
habits never. I might make one excep- 
tion to this. Some years ago one of 
our boys ran away from school. I was 
anxious to locate him; in my search I 
met a man on the public highway and 
made inquiry about him, but he said 
he had not seen the boy. I said, ''You 
would remember him if you saw him 
because he would tip his hat so politely 
that it would attract your attention.'' 
''Yes, I met him," said the man. I 
telephoned up the road twenty miles to 
an officer that if the boy came to his 
town to hold him until I arrived. When 



28 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

I got there on the next train the officer 
had the boy. He told me that he rode 
past the boj twice on his wheel and 
each time he passed the boy's hat went 
off automatically. This was one time 
when a good habit got a yomig man 
into trouble. It also got him out of 
trouble. What we want is the auto- 
matic habit. We have not formed it 
correctly until it is automatic. We do 
not have to think to dress when we get 
up in the morning. We do not have to 
think to perform our toilet. When the 
child has been taught these things, at 
maturity they are habits. If they are 
neglected in the home the school must 
take them up. It is very important 
that students be tidy in every personal 
appearance, respectful and polite to 
everybody, and punctual to every obli- 
gation. These habits are most impor- 
. tant in. the formation of character. They 
are the fundamentals. If students are 
allowed to be slipshod in school, when 
they get out among the people they will 
live slipshod lives. They will be slip- 



Suggestions for tJie Teacher. 29 

shod teachers and slipshod preachers 
and slipshod farmers. The tardy at- 
tendance of nearly all of our public 
gatherings is a practical illustration of 
this fact. If they are late two minutes 
when being gored along, they will be late 
for everything when the restraint is 
moved. As the leaders are, so the 
masses will be. Bad habits on the part 
of teachers will affect every student in 
school and school government will be 
harder on account of such a one. 

I am not putting it too strongly when 
I say that we have men and women in 
our teaching profession to-day whose 
lives are simply contaminating. They 
can put on a good appearance and that 
is all there is to them. The school 
supervisors know this to be too true, but 
the parents of the children know it bet- 
ter. This may be why God allows the 
race to be ^' Jim Crowed.'' We have so 
many shams and hypocrites. They are 
in our churches, in our school rooms, 
recognized as our leaders, presenting 
our grievances to the nation, big men 



30 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

in the great gatherings and many of 
them with their pockets filled with 
poison, their breath scented with the 
fumes of hades, and their lives other- 
wise will not bear inspection. Their 
sentiment is, *^^Do not do as I do, but as 
I say do." A more infernal doctrine 
never proceeded from the mouth of man. 
I am speaking to teachers. I am glad 
I have the pleasure of speaking to you 
who are in this 'profession, because the 
yoke, the mantle or whatever you are 
pleased to call it is upon us. Shall we 
walk worthy of this vocation? 

HIGH TEMPER IS NOT A BAD POSSES- 

sioisr. 

I have another thought that may help 
you. Teaching for most of us is a life 
profession. The more we know about 
it, therefore, the better for us. There 
is scarcely a characteristic common to 
man but that it may affect us individ- 
ually at some time. Students often say 
that certain teachers are high tempered. 
There is only one other compliment that 
I would regard greater than that of hav- 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 31 

ing a high temper. It is the compli- 
ment of being the master of that tem- 
per. The man or woman without tem- 
per has not all the requisites necessary 
to meet the demands of the world. The 
temper must be guided, it must be di- 
rected, we must master it or it will have 
us hunting a job all the time; unmas- 
tered it will make us uncomfortable 
with our fellows, it will give us trouble, 
take us to the tombs or to the gallows. 
The teacher with unmastered temper 
will incite the devil in the minds of stu- 
dents. Look over your acquaintances 
and you will find that those who have 
mastered their tempers have more vir- 
tues to recommend them than those who 
have not thus mastered them. Iron is 
a worthless product until the art of the 
smith has been applied to its tempering. 
All metals must be tempered before they 
are of practical utility. It is the tem- 
per that gives life. Without that they 
are dead. So let us have the temper, 
but let us control that temper. We can- 
not control students with unmastered 



32 Suggestions . for the Teacher. 

tempers. You cannot control even ani- 
mals with unmastered tempers. You 
may beat, drag and pull them along, but 
YOU cannot train them. You get mad, 
the animal gets mad. The spirit of the 
infernal regions is in you both. His 
Satanic Majesty is triumphant. He 
knows his power and your weak points 
and how to make an invapion. We can- 
not control others until we learn to con- 
trol ourselves. Students are in their 
formative period. We must not chas- 
tise them for their high temper, but we 
must seek to control that temper. It is 
possible to direct it along other chan- 
nels. You have the wand, only use it 
skilfully. In my experience I have 
found that those who have a "high tem- 
per" are usually our best students in 
their books. They are most alert and 
thorough in their work. They are the 
quickest to resent an insult and the 
neatest in their personal appearance and 
conduct. This is true with respect to 
people who are not students. It is the 
temper back of the determination that 



Siiggestious for the Teacher. 33 

makes a man succeed in any pursuit. 
There are exceptions, of course, but 
these are some of the virtues that I have 
noticed among my friends, and they are 
commendable. 

WHAT IS THE SALARY ? 

It is unfortunate that this is one of 
the first questions which the material- 
istic age in which we live suggests. Yet 
it is a fair question. When servant 
oirls can set fifteen dollars a month for 
house work and farm hands a dollar a 
day for their labor, it is not a bad ques- 
tion for school teachers to inquire, at 
least, as to what they shall receive for 
their services. It is to be remembered 
that the average salary which I^egro 
teachers receive in !N^orth Carolina is 
only $22.20 a month. It is an alarm- 
ing fact that this pittance is driving 
from our profession the best brain that 
comes from the colleges. The pay is 
altogether incompatible "with the nature 
of the service and the demands of the 
class room. We pay our bricklayers 
and carpenters, who never spent a day 



34 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

in the class-room, more for two weeks' 
work than we pay our teachers for a 
month's work. Those who follow the 
profession are forced to take np some 
other line of work in order to support 
their families. This leads to a division 
of interest, and both occupations suffer. 
Another deplorable condition which 
is reported sometimes in our teachers' 
gatherings is the fact that in some com- 
munities the position of the teacher is 
auctioned off to the one who will teach 
for the least amount of money. This 
is a great injustice to the profession and 
an imposition upon those who have pre- 
pared themselves to do efficient work in 
the class-room. When good teachers 
have to compete thus for their positions 
it is time for them to get out and take 
up another calling Avhere personal honor 
will not be sacrificed in getting a job. 
Parents cannot expect much from such 
teachers ; school commissioners get what 
they pay for — slovenly and shoddy 
work; the community gets trouble. 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 35 

The question of salary is an impor- 
tant one for several reasons. Take the 
matter of board. Provisions, alone, 
cost 40 per cent more than they did a 
fev^ years ago, so that one cannot get 
board by the month for less than ten 
and fifteen dollars. This is particularly 
true in the towns. Teachers should at- 
tend educational conferences, and read 
a few of the educational journals and 
keep otherwise posted on current events. 
They must do this in order to keep up 
v.'ith their profession. After they have 
paid for their own keep and shared with 
their families there is nothing left for 
personal improvement. Under these 
conditions it is not strange to see all 
over this country relegated school teach- 
ers. 

THEY SHOULD NOT NAG. 

Some teachers have a way of nagging 
their students. I know of nothing so 
nauseating as to be nagged all the time. 
I was once a hotel boy. I went to that 
position from the country — Loudon 
County, Virginia. I was every whit a 



36 Suggestions for the Teacher, 

country lad, a ^^Greenj from the sticks," 
with country woven suit, box-toed shoes, 
ruffled bosom shirt, flaxen hair pre- 
dominating with red, pants dyed to har- 
monize with the season, Virginia brogue 
typical of the mountain country. My 
steps were not agile and quick but in 
strides and leaps. I thought a bell boy 
had to ring bells and that a waiter had 
to sit and simply wait. I knew more 
about the plow and wagon than I did 
about the tray. I could handle a four 
horse team with one line better than I 
could bring from the kitchen meals for 
four men. I was an expert at cutting 
corn and taking up wheat behind a 
cradle, but would almost break my neck 
daily walking over the marble floor of 
the hotel. Was I nagged? I could 
maul rails all day in the woods but could 
not walk from one end of the dining- 
room to the other without liability of 
hooking into some one's feet. When a 
gentleman asked for syrup I would just 
as soon give him a bottle of Worcester- 
shire sauce, and. argue with him that, 



Suggestions for the Teacher, 37 

'^that v/as what we serve molasses in." 
Was I nagged ? What did I know 
about a silver syrup pitcher ? I never 
saw one before in my life. I was 
nagged and guyed, guyed and nagged. 
Had it not been for the superhuman am- 
bition I had for an education I would 
have gone back to the country a thousand 
times. I never was quite so well pleased 
as I was one morning about twenty- 
three years ago in Cleveland, Ohio, when 
I picked up a morning paper and found 
that my chief nagger had gotten him- 
self into trouble and had been sent to the 
State's prison for two years. It was 
certainly a great relief to me when he 
went. While we worked together I was 
reminded daily that my hair was curly, 
that my dyed pants needed a little 
syrup on the bottom to hold them down, 
that I had not lost my Virginia brogue, 
that I had fallen in the dining-room a 
dozen times, that on one occasion the 
second waiter had to extricate me and 
the tray — once full of dishes — from the 
threshold of the spring door which had 



38 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

iinfortunatelj come into contact with 
my box-toed shoes. Was I nagged ? I 
would as soon ask for a dish of "dupli- 
cates'' as for a dish of corn beef hash. 
I knew as much about the one as the 
other. The hotel help never had a bet- 
ter picnic than they had with me. I 
know how it feels to be nagged and 
guyed. 

As a student I know what it is to fail 
tO' make a recitation for a week and to 
have to appear before the teacher Sat- 
urday to make up five zeros; instead oi 
getting five perfect marks get the sixth 
zero with advice from the teacher in 
these words: "There are some students 
in this class who would make better ox 
drivers than scholars." I took it all tc 
myself without passing back any retort, 
because I knew too well that I was a 
first-class teamster, but that was no rea- 
son why I should not at least try to be 
a scholar. It was a great humiliation to 
be thus nagged. About the only conso- 
lation I had was the fact that there were 
others in that class who had all the ad- 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 39 

vantages and when I went to make up 
my zeros I found them doing the same 
thing. ]^ow, do not form a bad con- 
clusion about that teacher. She was a 
splendid woman. She meant well. She 
made the mistake that thousands of our 
teachers are making all over this country 
to-day. She did not know the soul of 
the boy. I held on like the four legged 
canine. I never proposed to let loose. 
When she saw that I meant to stay she 
came to me and asked me to give her a 
place as teacher in the Sunday-school of 
which I was superintendent. She taught 
most acceptably and I was glad to have 
her in our Sunday-school because of the 
opportunity it gave me to come into con- 
tact with her outside of her o^vn class- 
room. This was in the town of Oberlin. 
in a colored Sunday-school and she was 
a white lady. In all of my study under 
her she never knew me until she came to 
this Sunday-school to teach in which I 
was superintendent. It was here and 
under these circumstances that we came 
to know each other as only student and 



40 Suggestions for the Teacher. 

teacher should know each other. My 
success under her tutorship after that 
was assured. So, my fellow teachers, 
you can not afford to nag your students 
when they are doing their best, nor can 
you afford to allow others in your pres- 
ence to nag theirs. If you want to send 
your siudents home or to some other 
school, just nag. If you want them to 
hate you now or curse your memory 
when you are dead just keep nagging. If 
their parents insist that they must re- 
main under your tutorship you have no 
bett'x^r n'ay to break their spirits and to 
take I'-way their ambition for learning 
than to just continue nagging. It is like 
the frill, the continuous fall of a drop of 
waler in the hearing of a prisoner, who 
can not extr.'cate himself from its tor- 
mtmt': ; it i« excruciating, it is agonizing, 
it is death. Do not forget that you are 
a teacher and that you are moulding the 
lives of the future. The greatest lessons 
youi' studpnt'3 will take from your school. 
Ihe one that will cling to them when all 
the c'cadomic studies have been forgot- 



Suggestions for the Teacher. 41 

ten, when yov.v lectures shall liave faded 
into insignificance, will be the lesson of 
your personal example. 

I have n'-'t songht in these few chap- 
ters to exhaust this subject, for it is an 
exhai;b^-lcss subject, but simply to state 
a few thoughts that have come to me as 
a result of eighteen years as a teacher 
in the class-room, and a large part of 
this pupervising, helping, planning and 
directino' others in their work. 







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